“The first hour of the tiger!” There were calls here and there as guardsmen flushed out intruders.
The lady was sad, and more beautiful for the sadness, as she recited a poem:
“They say that it is dawn, that you grow weary.
I weep, my sorrows wrought by myself alone.”
He answered:
“You tell me that these sorrows must not cease?
My sorrows, my love will neither have an ending.”
He made his stealthy way out. The moon was cold in the faint beginnings of dawn, softened by delicate tracings of mist. Though in rough disguise, he was far too handsome not to attract attention. A guards officer, brother of Lady Shōkyōden, had emerged from the Wisteria Court and was standing in the shadow of a latticed fence. If Genji failed to notice him, it was unfortunate.
Always when he had been with another lady he would think of the lady who was so cold to him. Though her aloofness was in its way admirable, he could not help resenting it. Visits to court being painful, Fujitsubo had to worry from afar about her son the crown prince. Though she had no one to turn to except Genji, whom she depended on for everything, she was tormented by evidence that his unwelcome affections were unchanged. Even the thought that the old emperor had died without suspecting the truth filled her with terror, which was intensified by the thought that if rumors were to get abroad, the results, quite aside from what they might mean for Fujitsubo herself, would be very unhappy for the crown prince. She even commissioned religious services in hopes of freeing herself from Genji’s attentions and she exhausted every device to avoid him. She was appalled, then, when one day he found a way to approach her. He had made his plans carefully and no one in her household was aware of them. The result was for her an unrelieved nightmare.
The words with which he sought to comfort her were so subtle and clever that I am unable to transcribe them, but she was unmoved. After a time she was seized with sharp chest pains. Omyōbu and Ben hurried to her side. Genji was reeling from the grim determination with which she had repulsed him. Everything, past and future, seemed to fall away into darkness. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he stayed on in her apartments even though day was breaking. Several other women, alerted to the crisis, were now up and about. Omyōbu and Ben bundled a half-conscious Genji into a closet. They were beside themselves as they pushed his clothes in after him. Fujitsubo was now taken with fainting spells. Prince Hyōbu and her chamberlain were sent for. A dazed Genji listened to the excitement from his closet.
Towards evening Fujitsubo began to feel rather more herself again. She had not the smallest suspicion that Genji was still in the house, her women having thought it best to keep the information from her. She came out to her sitting room. Much relieved, Prince Hyōbu departed. The room was almost empty. There were not many women whom she liked to have in her immediate presence and the others kept out of sight. Omyōbu and Ben were wondering how they might contrive to spirit Genji away. He must not be allowed to bring on another attack.
The closet door being open a few inches, he slipped out and made his way between a screen and the wall. He looked with wonder at the lady and tears came to his eyes. Still in some pain, she was gazing out at the garden. Might it be the end? she was asking herself. Her profile was lovely beyond description. The women sought to tempt her with sweets, which were indeed most temptingly laid out on the lid of a decorative box, but she did not look at them. To Genji she was a complete delight as she sat in silence, lost in deeply troubled meditations. Her hair as it cascaded over her shoulders, the lines of her head and face, the glow of her skin, were to Genji irresistibly beautiful. They were very much like each other, she and Murasaki. Memories had dimmed over the years, but now the astonishing resemblance did a little to dispel his gloom. The dignity that quite put one to shame also reminded him of Murasaki. He could hardly think of them as two persons, and yet, perhaps because Fujitsubo had been so much in his thoughts over the years, there did after all seem to be a difference. Fujitsubo’s was the calmer and more mature dignity. No longer in control of himself, he slipped inside her curtains and pulled at her sleeve. So distinctive was the fragrance that she recognized him immediately. In sheer tenor she sank to the floor.
If she would only look at him! He pulled her towards him. She turned to flee, but her hair became entangled in her cloak as she tried to slip out of it. It seemed to be her fate that everything should go against her!
Deliriously, Genji poured forth all the resentment he had kept to himself; but it only revolted her.
“I am not feeling well. Perhaps on another occasion I will be better able to receive you.”
Yet he talked on. Mixed in with the flow were details which did, after all, seem to move her. This was not of course their first meeting, but she had been determined that there would not be another. Though avoiding explicit rejoinder, she held him off until morning. He could not force himself upon her. In her quiet dignity, she left him feeling very much ashamed of himself.
“If I may see you from time to time and so drive away a little of the gloom, I promise you that I shall do nothing to offend you.”
The most ordinary things have a way of moving people who are as they were to each other, and this was no ordinary meeting. It was daylight. Omyōbu and Ben were insistent and Fujitsubo seemed barely conscious.
“I think I must die, “ he said in a final burst of passion.” I cannot bear the thought of having you know that I still exist. And if I die my love for you will be an obstacle on my way to salvation.
“If other days must be as this has been,
I still shall be weeping two and three lives hence.
And the sin will be yours as well.”
She sighed.
“Remember that the cause is in yourself
Of a sin which you say I must bear through lives to come.”
She managed an appearance of resignation which tore at his heart. It was no good trying her patience further. Half distraught, he departed.
He would only invite another defeat if he tried to see her again. She must be made to feel sorry for him. He would not even write to her. He remained shut up at Nijō, seeing neither the emperor nor the crown prince, his gloom spreading discomfort through the house and making it almost seem that he had lost the will to live. “I am in this world but to see my woes increase.” He must leave it behind — but there was the dear girl who so needed him. He could not abandon her.
Fujitsubo had been left a near invalid by the encounter. Omyōbu and Ben were saddened at Genji’s withdrawal and refusal to write. Fujitsubo too was disturbed: it would serve the drown prince badly if Genji were to turn against her, and it would be a disaster if, having had enough of the world, he were to take holy orders. A repetition of the recent incident would certainly give rise to rumors which would make visits to the palace even more distasteful. She was becoming convinced that she must relinquish the title that had aroused the implacable hostility of Kokiden. She remembered the detailed and emphatic instructions which the old emperor had left behind. Everything was changed, no shadow remained of the past. She might not suffer quite as cruel a fate as Lady Ch’i, but she must doubtless look forward to contempt and derision. She resolved to become a nun. But she must see the crown prince again before she did. Quietly, she paid him a visit.
Though Genji had seen to all her needs in much more complicated matters than this one, he pleaded illness and did not accompany her to court. He still made routine inquiries as civility demanded. The women who shared
